Why must be “made in Solingen”?

Solingen, a city of Germany renowned for making high-quality flatware such as kitchen knives, blades, swords, and cutlery utensils. Known as the “City of Blades”, most kitchen knives are handcrafted, in finest quality and loved by a lot of famous chefs. For example, David Burke, an American chef from the TV-show Iron Chef America.

Best in Business

Buyer aware, they are plenty of fake German knives out there in the market.

Admittedly, no all the knives from Solingen are best and one should never judge a good knife simply by its price and manufacture country. Most of the time, you might pay extra for a fake Solingen knife. With that in mind, finding a well-known brand is actually not hard at all.

Most of the best knives have the distinctive Solingen Germany knife makers marks on it. The genuine knife should always have authentic and detailed knife markings. Compare it, you can easily notice the differences.

Being as one of the pioneers in the industry, who doesn’t know the popular tree brand Boker Solingen?! You might be wondering where are Boker knives made from, It’s exactly in Solingen. Providing high quality of craftsmanship over generations of people, it can even be dated back to 17th century!

Operated by the Berns brothers, Messer or OTTER is another over-the-hill company since 1840. Even today, they are still using the traditional method with meticulous skills on making their blades. Many big brands and celebs are still in fond of their old-fashioned way of making knives.

There are many awesome brands which we are not able to cover in this post, including Felix Solingen, Hoffman, Spyderco, Richartz, and much more.

Nagasaki knife Collections

Succesful Kickstarter campaign

Weeks ago, I spoke to the founder of Nagasaki Knife, Adnan, a knife fanatic who run a successful Kickstarter campaign last month with over $215K raised from almost 1000 backers. The result has far exceeded his original pledge of $9000. You have to check out their previous KS campaign — Japanese Damascus VG-10 Steel, it’s awesome!

That looks great, right? Hold on, this is even better — their latest collection.

Sternsteiger Achilles — a kitchen knife

It is one of the coolest knives I’ve ever used! it’s called Sternsteiger Achilles.

How Nagasaki is created — The Background

Adnan has partnered with the company Sternsteiger Stahlwaren to produce a new type of versatile and modern kitchen knife. They call it Achilles.

Together, they have spent almost 3 years in researching this unique knife and now it’s on the verge of mass production. Fortunately, Iildeal.com have the pleasure to review this awesome Solingen knife first-hand.

The history and little story

Everything started when Usmann was still a design student. He worked in the hotel and restaurant industry to pay the bills. During that time, he has the chance get to know many professional chefs. As a cooking hobbyist himself, he slowly got into the conversation with them.

One thing that came up during these discussions was how slippery the knife handle and therefore dangerous knives were used throughout the day.

Then, he began to look for an alternative or a better knife design to solve this common problem.

It took him years to study, research and experiment with his ideas. Later on, he has already created a few designs and consulted with Sternsteiger to come to a final solution.

The development

To further develop the design, they have used modern 3D printing techniques to produce prototypes for basic usability tests.

During these tests, they made sure that the handle was easy to grip and grasp firmly in the palm of the hand. After that, the prototypes were made of steel and feedback was collected from professional chefs and valued customers.

Design and Award

Sternsteiger Achilles is an aesthetic modern kitchen knife.

It has received German Design Award Product and has been nominated for Best Design Award 2018 by German design council.

Design with culinary artists in mind, the unique shaped handle fits perfectly in my hand and offers a solid and comfortable grip, it won’t fall off even if your hands or the knife itself is wet.

To be honest, I was pretty amazed by the stunning appearance of the blade when I first got this knife. It is slightly heavier than normal kitchen knives.

Unlike any traditional kitchen knives, this actually made me want to go back to the kitchen!

I was informed by Usmann that Achilles has a Rockwell hardness scale of 60 – 61. And It’s made of 1.4116 German prime stainless steel in Solingen under excellent work-class quality and designed to last a lifetime.

Highlighting the ergonomic shape, Achilles’s most striking feature is the central opening.

Double as a handle, it helps to equalize the pressure while you cut or chop by making room for your thumb or index finger.

I felt like it’s ready to take on any duty you throw at, such as mincing, slicing, chopping and deboning.

The razor-sharp blade edge is smooth and so sharp that as if it could slice up the sun-rays. The hand-crafted steel is chunky and sturdy. It is more than enough for normal chopping and I think it barely needs to sharpen again.

Additionally, I have also been provided with a small paring knife.

Final Words

Achilles is an outstanding and unique cooking knife, which opens a new age for knives by adapting the design of the knives to the everyday requirements. Made in Germany by excellent craftsmen, the quality is undeniable. The design is thoughtful and has a contemporary stylish look to fit into any modern kitchen.

Currently, Sternsteiger Stahlwaren is still optimizing the production of Achilles, but they will soon bring this special knife to the market. Check Achilles Official Website and be the first one getting this badass kitchen knife.